Acronym

Alternate name(s)

Main dependent construct(s)/factor(s)

Behavioral intention to use, Immersion

Main independent construct(s)/factor(s)

Perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, curiosity, joy, control

Concise description of theory

The hedonic-motivation system adoption model (HMSAM) is a native information systems theory to improve the understanding of hedonic-motivation systems (HMS) adoption. HMS are systems used primarily to fulfill users’ intrinsic motivations, such for online gaming, virtual worlds, online shopping, learning/education, online dating, digital music repositories, social networking, only pornography, gamified systems, and for general gamification. Instead of a minor, general technology acceptance model (TAM) extension, HMSAM is an HMS-specific system acceptance model based on an alternative theoretical perspective, which is in turn grounded in flow-based cognitive absorption (CA). The HMSAM further builds on van der Heijden’s (2004) model of hedonic system adoption by including CA as a key mediator of perceived ease of use (PEOU) and of behavioral intentions to use (BIU) hedonic-motivation systems. Typically, models simplistically represent “intrinsic motivations” by mere perceived enjoyed. Instead, HMSAM uses the more complex, rich construct of CA, which includes joy, control, curiosity, focused immersion, and temporal dissociation. CA is construct that is grounded in the seminal flow literature, yet ironically CA has traditionally been used as a static construct, as if all five of its subconstructs occur at the same time—in direct contradiction to the flow literature. Thus, part of HMSAM’s contribution is to return CA closer to its flow roots by re-ordering these CA subconstructs into more natural process-variance order as predicted by flow. Empirical data collection along with mediation tests further support this modeling approach. Figure 1 overviews HMSAM.